“What did you find?” asked she.

Clarice showed the basket and the gold chain.  Her mother handled both with wondering admiration, asking many a question.  At last she threw the chain around her neck.

“It’s gold,” said she.  “It’s worth much.  If you could pick up the like of that every day, you might let the old weed-basket drift.”

“I had rather gather weeds till my back was broken doing it, than ever find another,” said Clarice.

The dame took this for a child’s exaggeration; observing which, Clarice said, sadly,—­

“Why, don’t you see how it came to shore?  There’s been a wreck in the storm last week.  Oh, may-be I’ve found all that will tell of it!”

“What’s that in your hand?” asked the dame, who spied the ring.

Clarice half opened her palm; she did not like to let the ring pass from her keeping, and all this while she had stood doubting whether or not she should show it to her mother.

Dame Briton took it quickly.  The dull glitter of greedy eyes fell on the mild lustre of the pearl, but found no reflection.

“A ring!” said she, and she tried to fit it to her little finger.  It would not pass the first rough joint.

“Try it,” said she to Clarice.

“No,” was the quiet answer.  “But I will keep the ring.  It must have been a lady’s.  May-be it was a token.”

“May-be it was.—­If your father should take that chain to the Port, he might make a handsome bargain,—­if he was worth a snap at bargains.—­Here’s something; what be these marks? look here, Clarice.”

The face of the girl flushed a little as she answered,—­“H.  H.”

“H.H.! What does that mean?  I wonder.”

“May-be the name of the owner,” answered Clarice, timidly.

She was thinking, not of what the letters might have meant to others, but of what they had come to signify to her and Luke.

“Who knows?” answered her mother; and she stood musing and absent, and her face had a solemn look.

Clarice now took the basket to the fireplace and held it there till it was dried.  With the drying the colors brightened and the sand was easily brushed away; but many a stain remained on the once dainty white silk lining; the basket would hardly have been recognized by its owner.  Having dried and cleansed it as well as she was able, Clarice laid it away in a chest for safe-keeping, and then ate her breakfast, standing.  After that, she went out to work again until the tide should come in.  She left the chain with her mother, but the ring she had tied to a cord, and hung it around her neck.

By this time the children of the fishermen were all out, and the most industrious of them at work.  They scattered among the rocks and crags, and wandered up and down the coast three miles, gathering sea-weed, which it was their custom to dry, and then carry to town, the Port, not many miles distant, where it was purchased by the glassmakers.